bike culture blogged

Today the Specialized Power saddle was announced and it’s an iteration in their Body Geometry line and more importantly, along with its arrival to market, is a side of Spesh not often seen by the public or media. The saddle’s nickname of “Happy Pink Taco – as opposed to an angry one – jokes started with them in lighter, humorous discussions, often after recovery beers.

The Power Team edition

Riding it in Seattle for the past few weeks, the Power (HPT) was immediately noticed on my rides with even more jokes. Try saying, “vagina-mapped” with a straight face and then discuss how, “unisex shaping offers relief in aggressive positions.”

Well it totally does work and yep snicker and smirk and also note that as with most everything in the bike industry now, it’s exceptionally well-designed compared to just a few years ago. That’s when you got a Rolls, or something similar, and broke it in for weeks on end, and whether it hurt or not.

Here’s the embargo-expired-this-morning quick video with the rest of the HPT story and review to follow in issue 22 of our magazine. Jokes aside, the Power is a serious performance development from Spesh with all-day comfort AND an aggressive time-trial position.

Being on the rivet, as roadies say and meaning on the nose of the saddle, has never really been “comfortable” until now. Ask your bike fitter or Specialized shop about getting the Power for your bike.

Power Saddle MSRP

Today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Ford announced an update to their Smart Mobility programs that includes ebikes for personal and business use. These are last mile solutions to address congestion and the eventuality of cities filling up with too many cars. The idea is that you get close to the city and then ride in and continue your journey multi modally by van, bus, or train. The cargo service addresses the same congestion problem with a van and a delivery bike. Both personal and business use are enabled by an app. The bikes are built by Dahon and both are interesting concepts. As I’ve said about this segment of the market, if the bike industry can’t figure out how to sell ebikes in the US, then car companies will and combine them with fleet management or share systems.

The MoDe:Me e-bike – built with the help of bicycle manufacturer Dahon – is intended for urban commuters to keep moving in congested city traffic. It folds and stows easily, allowing commuters to park on the city outskirts, take the e-bike onto public transport and travel to the centre, then ride the e-bike to their destination

The MoDe:Pro e-bike – built by a Ford team – is intended for urban commercial use such as by couriers, electricians, and goods and delivery services. It is designed to stow safely into commercial vehicles such as Transit Connect, which can act as carrier and support vehicle, and be combined with more than one e-bike

The prototype app for both bikes is called MoDe:Link and compatible with the iPhone 6, as shown in the video.

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My bike media colleague, Carlton Reid has set out to Kickstart another book and this one is about the Bike Boom AND how to make it boomier. I’ll let him tell you about it in this video and later, when he visits Seattle, we’re gonna ride that chroma key bike lane together.

A certain lightness was needed, a comedic break in this crazy F’d up world (including the impending UCI doping report) and it finally happened with the Internets blowing up over a couple of escaped Llamas. We had some fun with the story too, with Carlton Reid’s help… a little bit of viralness, just a bit with the Llamas.

The inside joke here was, just prior I had said aloud in the office “maybe we should talk more about infrastructure and bike lanes.” Well, hey we did for a day! Also joked about the new bike lanes in Seattle that are so green, they look like chroma key screens weather reporters use. They painted it so day glo, like a little red carpet for bikes in green, to attract cyclists and be distinctive. Before it was painted, if you took a right off of Dexter onto Mercer, it looked like another lane of traffic for cars.

And that’s enough about lanes, what I said in the original tweet Carlton responded to about SXSW was true. Being part of the community in 15 AND the year of the bike. We switched up what we do too –– like suddenly we’re dismounting and remounting on the LEFT side of the bike –– to advocacy this year from corporate events with Microsoft, Google, and the like in past years.